Hope for Her (Hope #1) (23 page)

"Jackson," I screamed.

Josh turned. He grabbed me from behind. He pulled me into him. He smelled like garbage and his breath smelled like shit. His other hand wrapped around my stomach over my own arms, and he pressed. He stepped back and threw me onto his bed. I rolled off and landed hard on the floor facedown. I gripped my stomach and tried to take a mental inventory, but my mind went blank when Josh kicked me. It shocked me more than it hurt. His foot hit my arm, but I moved to examine it and his next kick landed full force on my stomach.

It knocked the wind out of me. I rolled onto my side away from him. Trying to crawl under the bed, but the clearance wouldn't allow me. Josh kicked again. It landed in the center of my back, and the pain radiated through my body, and my legs fell numb.

Josh reached down and grabbed my arm so hard I thought he'd pulled it out of the socket. He dragged me to the center of the room and pushed me onto my back.

He straddled me and felt around on my stomach. He squeezed several areas, and I recoiled on the inside, willing my child to find a safe place. Josh pushed on my stomach, feeling for our baby. I fought him off with one arm and attempted to protect my baby with the other. I scratched, pinched, and punched, but it did nothing to stop him or slow him down.

I registered yelling, and someone banging on the door, and a small glimmer of hope entered my mind telling me to hold on. Help was on the way.

He put all his weight on one side and punched the other. I cried out again, but it only made him hit me harder. I gave up on trying to hurt him and used both arms to protect my baby. Then, he hit me in the face. His fist landed on the side of my head and my vision blurred. I started losing consciousness.

I yelled inside my head, "No! No! No!"

I willed my mind not to pass out. I needed to remain conscious. I prayed Jackson could hear me. I prayed he would find a way in and save me, but another blow landed across my mouth and a hand wrapped around my throat.

My vision blurred. The scene played out in slow motion in front of me. Josh on top of me, his knees digging into my stomach. The rage emanated from his eyes as spit trickled from his face. He hovered over me trying to choke me. My hand flew up to my neck as I tried to pull his hands away, and this left my stomach exposed where he returned to punching and kneeing as I coughed and gasped for air.

He stopped for a minute and leaned down, his mouth close to my ear.

"I'm sorry, Carrington." Tears fell out of his eyes and dropped onto my face to mix with my own. "I love you so much, but I have to fix this."

The pain from the blows to my stomach hurt so much. If I felt it, I was sure my baby felt it, too. The sense of being pregnant, of having something growing inside of me, faded away.

It didn't matter.

I dropped my arms, and the world faded away along with the pain.

Time to let go.

Chapter Thirty

Carrington Olivia Butler

I heard the commotion but kept my eyes shut. Fear paralyzed me and I held my breath waiting for it to end. Even behind my closed eyes, I saw Josh’s face hovering over mine. The pain on my face from Josh hitting me subsided or maybe the intense pain radiating from the inside out took over. A vise gripped my insides and twisted it.

Holy heck it hurt.

I had a moment of relief when I no longer felt Josh’s weight on me. I rolled over on my left side and wrapped my arms around my stomach and the pain went away.

"Brandon, get him out of here," Jackson yelled, but he sounded a million miles away.

Relief washed over me as I opened my eyes and found Jackson kneeling next to me holding my hand. I closed my eyes and concentrated on his hand rubbing mine. He whispered in my ear, "Hold on Carrington. Help is on the way. Don't move."

I barely understood the words, but the tone of his voice comforted me. I gripped his arm when another pain clenched my stomach, and I screamed for it to stop.

Thankfully it did.

Jackson's tears fell, but he tried to smile through them. I tried to speak, but the pain in my throat prevented any sound; I only erupted in a fit of coughs until another pain clenched my stomach, and I squeezed Jackson's arms harder. His eyes widened, but he took my pain.

"The baby’s gone," I whispered. Jackson's face inched closer to mine.

"No, he's fine. You're both going to be fine. Hold on."

Someone yelled Josh's name and Jackson’s head turned.

"Where's Josh?" I asked.

He lowered his head down and whispered, "Don't worry about it. I won't ever let him hurt you again."

The contraction stopped, and I relaxed my grip and concentrated on breathing.

"Don't leave me alone. Okay?" I asked, but before he answered, the paramedics arrived and pushed him out of the way.

I reached out for him, but the paramedics turned me over on my back and started working on me. One guy sat next to me and grabbed my arm. He put a blood pressure cuff on me as he asked me questions.

"Miss, can you tell me your name?" he asked as he took my heart rate. "Let's get a baby monitor on her," he directed.

"Carrington,” I whispered.

"Hi Carrington, my name is Ryan," he said. "How far along are you?"

"Twenty-nine weeks."

"Are you feeling contractions?" he asked as another contraction squeezed my gut, worse than the others. I screamed and tried to sit up. Ryan held me down.

"Okay, Carrington, I need you to listen to me. Do not push. Breathe through it but don't push. I'm going to feel to make sure the baby isn't coming, okay?"

I didn't respond.

"Carrington, I need you to say okay."

"Okay, okay." The pain subsided a little but not completely as Ryan felt between my legs. The other paramedic kneeled on my other side to start an IV.

"Carrington, this is Mike."

"Hi," Mike said.

The paramedics spoke over me, and their medical speak made my head hurt. I heard the words 'stop her labor' and 'sedate her.'

"Carrington, Mike's going to give you an IV, so we can get medicine in your system to stop your contractions, and we are going to give you a sedative so you won't be in pain when we transport you. Okay?"

I looked around the room and found Jackson leaning over the paramedic. He smiled and nodded his head.

"Okay."

I felt a pinprick in my arm, and I tried to concentrate on Jackson's face, but soon the world faded away, along with the pain.

#

It took me a few tries to open my eyes. I thought minutes passed between moments of consciousness, but for all I knew it was days. I woke up once and started sobbing and crying, and the pain or the medication or both knocked me back out.

The next time, I forced my eyes to stay open. I surveyed the room. Light from the hallway allowed me to see my surroundings. I was in a hospital room. The smell of antiseptic, combined with sickness, swirled around my nose. The sound of hushed tones drifted in the room from the hallway. Surrounding the bed, monitors blinked, but the room was quiet.

I lifted my left arm, and an IV protruded from the inside of my elbow. I turned my hand over. Bruises marked my hands and arms.

I touched my face, and my jaw felt swollen. A bandage covered the right side of my head by the temple. I pressed my neck and winced from the pain. I tried speaking but found it too painful. I gave up and drifted back to sleep.

The next time I opened my eyes, a man's voice coaxed me out of my sleep.

"Carrington, I need you to try and open your eyes," the man said. "There you go. Hi, I'm Dr. Autrey. I was the doctor on duty when you arrived."

"Hi." I mouthed the words, my throat too sore.

"It's going to take a while for your voice to return to normal, you have bruised vocal cords."

"What else?" I mouthed the words.

"You had a cut on the side of your head, and nasty bump on the back of your head, which resulted in a concussion, but CT scans were normal."

I placed my hand on my stomach. The emptiness overwhelmed my senses, and it hit me like another punch to the stomach.

"Baby," I said in a whisper. Tears fell out of my eyes. I reached up to wipe them away, but Dr. Autrey took my hand instead. I gripped the side of the bed and prepared myself for him to say the words.

"Your son is in the neonatal ICU. It's just down the hall."

I gasped.

"When you came in, you were bleeding internally and had a ruptured placenta from the trauma. We performed an emergency C-section and delivered your son at four thirty pm yesterday."

"Oh my God." 

"He weighs in at just under three pounds, and he's about five inches long. At twenty-nine weeks, he needs some help to breathe right now, and we are feeding him through a tube in order for him to gain some weight. His heart is strong, but with babies born this early, we just have to wait and see."

Dr. Autry described my injuries more, but I tuned him out. My baby was in trouble, but he was alive. Nothing else mattered.

Chapter Thirty-One

Joshua Elijah Griffin, IV

As the sun rose, the warmth increased in the cocoon of blankets surrounding me. With the increase of heat, the pain increased, weighing on every body part. I panicked for a minute; the muscles in my legs seized, and I tried to bend them, but it hurt.

I moved my toe, the only body part that didn't hurt, and relief hit me—I wasn't paralyzed. I tried to move my arms, and it took way too much effort. The back of my hands felt sore. I rubbed my thumb across my swollen fingers. Unable to open my eyes, I dislodged the blanket from suffocating me and pushed myself up.

I fell back down and willed my heart to stop beating so fast. I clutched my chest and took deep breaths. When my heart slowed, I gave up on moving and tried working my brain instead.

Where am I and how did I get here?

The last thing I remembered was leaving my father's house. Oh yeah, and the full bottle of Jack I swiped from the bar as I headed out the door.

I remembered making it back to the highway, but my mind blocked out the rest.

"Oh, Joshie, you're awake."

The high pitch sing-song voice called my name.

Why is she in my bed?

"Candace," I said, but it came out more like a croaking frog. I tried again, "Candace?"

She pulled the cover off of my head and the sunlight blinded me. I recoiled from the intense pressure originating in the center of my brain.

"Oh Joshie."

She placed something cool and soft on my face, and it brought tears to my eyes.

I tried speaking. "How did you get here?"

"Where?" she said. "This is my place."

"How did I get here?" I asked. I pried my eyes open and looked up at Candace. She sat on her knees next to me wearing a green silk robe. It matched the green streak in her hair.

"I found you at Dano's. He said you barged your way in and he almost threw you out, but you threw a wad of cash at him. You grabbed the stuff he had in his pocket and locked yourself in his back room. You really freaked Dano out. He thought you had killed someone. You were passed out by the time we got the door open. He helped me get you in my car, and since I didn't know where you lived, I brought you here."

I sat up, and my stomach clenched. I forged through the pain in order to make it to the bathroom. I emptied the contents of my stomach. The smelled overtook me, and I let loose, again.

Squeezing my eyes shut, I searched for the handle to flush and prayed that my stomach calmed down.

I studied my bruised hands and the scratches on my arms. My knuckles were swollen to twice the regular size. I sat in the middle of Candace's bathroom in only my boxer shorts. I got in a fight, but I guess I won, because no other visible sign of trauma existed on my body.

I crawled back into her bedroom and pulled myself up on the bed. It took way too much effort, and I passed out.

When I woke up, Candace lay next to me rubbing my neck and back with the same cool cloth.

I moaned and closed my eyes, but something nagged on the edge of my consciousness.

"Why did Dano think I had murdered someone?" I asked.

"Because your clothes were covered in blood. Turns out, it wasn't yours."

"Blood," I said to myself. "Whose blood?"

I fell back asleep, and when I woke up this time, I felt better. The nausea gone, I forced myself to get up. I stepped into the shower and stood under the water as it went from cold to hot to cold again. I dried myself, wrapping a towel around my waist.

“You can borrow them." She pointed to a t-shirt, sweat pants, and some sneakers sitting on the bed. "An old boyfriend.”

She left me alone to get dressed. When I came out of her room, she stood in the kitchen fixing something on the stove. It smelled great, but it turned my stomach.

"Thanks for taking care of me, again. I appreciate it."

"You are quite welcome, my sweet Joshie."

"Candace, did we do anything last night?"

"You don't remember."

"I don't remember anything. I mean, I know the last time we got high, we fooled around and it ... you know it was nice, but I have a girlfriend, and she's pregnant, and I kind of freaked out last night, I guess. I can't remember, but I'm trying to do right by her, you know."

"I know, you told me last night."

"I did."

"Yeah, I tried to seduce you in your more lucid state last night, but you wouldn't have it. You said you loved your girlfriend. It was kind of sweet."

"Really?"

She smiled and nodded her head. She seemed a little sad. I thought it better to get the hell out of her apartment and get on with my life.

"Well, thanks again Candace. I'm going to head home."

"Okay, bye Joshie. You take care of yourself," she said.

I smiled, waved and headed out the door. I approached the parking lot.

Shit, I must have left my car at Dano's.

I lost my wallet and cellphone, too.